Chapter 23 Europe

  In the following days, Liu Fei and his group continued to wander around New York, indulging in food and drink, and also found time to attend several high-society parties and auctions. Of course, these events were mostly invitations for David, with Liu Fei and the two girls attending as his friends.

  Although it was a casual participation, Liu Ye gained a lot. At a dinner party hosted by a congressman, Liu Ye inadvertently asked if he could visit the US Navy. The congressman readily agreed and promised to take Liu Ye's group to visit the Norfolk base of the US Navy on the East Coast after finishing his work in a few days, and even promised not only to visit the naval port but also to take a ride on a warship at sea.

  A few days later, Liu Qian and his party were accompanied by this congressman to Norfolk, the main base of the US Navy on the East Coast.

  Norfolk is the first port city in Virginia, located on the Elizabeth River, facing the British port city of Portsmouth across the sea. At that time, the US Navy had just begun to be valued and had not yet been divided into the Atlantic Fleet and the Pacific Fleet. Moreover, the main threat to the United States came from Europe, so most of the main battleships were concentrated on the east coast of the United States and some ports in the UK. At that time, Pearl Harbor was just beginning to expand into a military port and had not yet been put into large-scale use, and the Panama Canal had not been excavated either.

  In the Norfolk naval harbor, Liu saw a battleship of this era up close for the first time - the "Massachusetts", the first of America's newly built Indiana-class battleships. This 10,225-ton battleship was over 100 meters long, with armor plating as thick as 18 inches, equipped with four 12-inch main guns and fifty smaller caliber cannons, as well as four torpedo tubes. Its top speed was only 15 knots, and its range was also insufficient, at just over 5,000 nautical miles.

  Liu Yi was visiting the command tower's various navigation equipment, pondering how this slow-moving warship could catch up with the enemy and launch a torpedo attack. At that time, the torpedo attack distance was only a few hundred meters.

  Although he didn't think much of this big iron thing in his heart, Liu Fei still praised the advanced and powerful warship, half out of politeness and half because of the shock of the warship. For Liu Fei, who had never been in contact with a warship before, it was not necessary to mention various parameters and performance, just this big guy standing nearby with its large cannon barrels could bring people a sense of solemnity.

  After visiting the "Massachusetts", everyone boarded a cruiser and circled around the bay. Liu Fei was not very interested in this old-fashioned cruiser, which would be seriously injured by one torpedo and sunk by two torpedoes. Only Russian battleships could withstand two Taiwanese torpedoes without sinking after several sneak attacks, while others shared the same fate.

  Just as everyone was excited to get off the cruiser and prepare to go to the base commander's home for lunch, Liu suddenly found a familiar figure in a corner of the military port, a small submarine. So, Liu let David come forward and made a request to visit the submarine.

  The commander of the Norfolk naval base, who accompanied the congressman on this tour, readily agreed to David's request. While introducing the general performance of this submarine, he complained that although it was not expensive to build, its performance was even lower. Not only could it not complete the task of following the main fleet to attack the enemy, but also needed a special warship to tow it, and if something went wrong, it would sink to the bottom of the sea. In short, he looked down on this submarine in every way, scolding the people in the Navy Department for spending money to buy such things to equip the navy, rather than putting them in a seaside amusement park as toys for their grandchildren.

  This is a Holland-type submarine, over ten meters long, with a pointed bow and stern. According to the US Navy, this type of submarine has been equipped with both gasoline and electric propulsion systems, allowing it to travel underwater at a speed of 5 nautical miles per hour for about 2 hours. It is also equipped with a torpedo tube that can launch torpedoes underwater. However, due to the short range of the torpedoes and its slow speed, it has almost no combat capability. Only one submarine of this type was ordered, and it did not enter actual combat, serving only as an experiment by the Navy Department.

  At lunch at the enthusiastic naval commander's home, Liu Fei and the naval commander found common language. The two people talked from ship guns to ship layout, from torpedo launchers to steam turbines. Finally, the naval commander insisted on writing a letter of recommendation for Liu Fei. When Liu Fei had the opportunity to go to Britain, he could take the letter to find the naval commander's military school classmate and have him take Liu Fei to see the situation of the British fleet. In the words of the commander, the current US Navy compared to the British Navy is just an inland river fleet.

  Farewell to the naval commander of Norfolk, Liu Fei and his party returned to New York, rested for 2 days, and then boarded a liner from New York to Europe, bound for Southampton, England. Before boarding the ship, Liu Fei repeatedly reminded David that when buying tickets, remember that any ship with the name "Titanic" must not be taken.

  This time in the UK, Rosalia and Jacqueline also followed Liu Ye to go together. After spending these days together, Liu Ye felt that these two girls were not bad, although they were social flowers, but Liu Ye did not look down on them. Anyway, Liu Ye didn't plan to marry them as wives, as long as they were good people, having them around wasn't a bad thing, at least there would be someone who cared about him, whether it was true or not.

  Here is the translation:

  Speaking of which, I have to introduce Liu Mo's attitude towards his emotions and family life in this lifetime. Since he found out that he had crossed over, Liu Mo has been holding a contradictory mindset towards this new life. On one hand, he doesn't plan to delve too deeply into this era, nor does he want to interfere with it too much, because he really can't figure out whether changing history would cause his other self in another time and space to disappear. On the other hand, he also doesn't want to waste this opportunity to cross over, which is rarer than winning 10 million dollars in a lottery. If he were to hide in a corner and secretly live out his life, it would be a bit of a waste of this chance to cross over. If people from his own time who are still waiting in line to cross over were to find out, they would curse his ancestors for generations to come.

  Due to this contradictory mentality, Liu Mei thought for a long time before deciding that she would not occupy a quota for men in her lifetime. A passerby should have the appearance of a passerby. Rather than leaving countless descendants in this era, it's better to "clean up and leave, hiding one's body and name".

  But not getting married, not having a family, doesn't mean becoming a monk. In the previous life, I didn't get to enjoy the luxury of beautiful women and cars, so in this life, finding a few girls that I like to explore the human body is still necessary. After all, one can't just skip through a hundred years and end up relying on prostitutes. So, no talk of marriage, no talk of emotions, only talk of transactions, only talk of enjoyment - this is Liu's current attitude towards women.

  Transatlantic travel in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was a vacation in itself. Since large steamships were not yet available, speeds were generally maintained at under 20 knots, and trips from New York to British ports typically took about a week.

  Because the time spent on the ship was long, and most of the people sitting in first class were wealthy Europeans and Americans, so at that time, large ocean liners basically decorated their cabins and various public places with unparalleled luxury to attract rich people to take them.

  Liu Ye and his party were on the luxurious liner "Wilhelm der Grosse" of the North German Lloyd company. This 1897-launched liner was the largest and most luxurious at that time, with a total length of over 200 meters and four thick chimneys (at that time, people thought that the more chimneys there were, the more boilers there were, and the faster the speed would be, and the higher the technology would be). The highest speed was 22 knots, and it could carry nearly 2,000 passengers at a time.

  David had of course purchased a first-class ticket, and it was the highest level of first class, not only like a suite in a large hotel, but also including recreational facilities such as a card room, smoking room, billiard room, bar, etc. For the first two days after departure, Liu Mei couldn't sleep due to psychological reasons, lying in bed with nothing to do, so she simply went to find Rosalia and Jacqueline for an in-depth understanding. As a result, within three days, Liu Mei had a pair of big black eye circles, looking like a big smoker.